


I Mean, My Room

by oroc



Series: The Covenant is Thicker [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Consensual Mind Control, Foot Fetish, Hypnotism, M/M, Multi, Religion, Rimming, Vampires, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4427624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oroc/pseuds/oroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My grooms insist."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Will definitely not make sense without the first part, ['I've Got Something Just for You'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2548481). Might not even make sense after that!
> 
> There will be more of this, too.

Connor Kent is a caregiver from Kansas.

Con was brought up to be a good, Christian Kansas boy who cares about Christ, and he isn't: he's a fairly naughty Raoian. With no fear of Hell, Con once fingered his maths tutor in a park in Smallville, 3AM and washed in Rao's brilliance. He has taken what Ma calls 'Midmima' and danced, naked except for flowers, at what Pa calls a 'Devil's Cotillion'.

Ma and Pa are loving and liberal. Most of these phrases are meant ironically, but Con is not the boy or the man they intended for him to be. Clark understands, but Clark *is* what they wanted, Rao or not, and that stings like fuck. It was good to move.

It might not have been good to move to Gotham. He'd never worked in a home with so much heroin in it before. He'd never seen so many unfortunate coincidences: there are 30 years between the youngest and oldest Falcones in that one but they all show symptoms you associate with the over-100s.

Con accepts an offer from a housebound billionnaire. 

-

Bruce Wayne is the creepiest fucker, but the best creepiest fucker he's met since coming to Gotham. It was, after all, this job or going back to training for psych work, and Arkham -

\- The Wayne job would be easier on his conscience. Besides - lucid adult with a rare *and treatable* blood condition, free room and board, and he's nice. Really.

Bruce has had a long line of men who lived with him in this house. Three came and, apparently, went, and apparently they visit. But their rooms - the attic studio and gym for Dick, who apparently went by Robin, the Regency room on the ground floor for Jason, the Pennyworth bedchamber next to the Library for Tim. All of them were about ten to twenty years younger than him, and he is adamant they were not his sons. 

The way he talks - deep and melodramatic, with the kind of deeply pretentious word choice Con expects from Jane Austen - makes Con feel protected. It's almost uncomfortably pleasant.

His first words to Con are: "Oh, Mr. Kent! You're soaked to the skin! Would you like to come in?"

When Con's arranged his first transfusion, and prepared the medication timetable, he talks to Bruce about how well he's kept to the timetables from before.

"I am your willing servant," the creepy fucker says.

"Were you the willing servants of your other willing servants before?"

"I've never actually paid for this sort of company," Bruce replies gormlessly, eyes bright and brown, hair a little damp - he's just showered, after they both used the gym. Jobs like this get intimate fast, even without the wiping. "I mean - for the medicine, of course, I - yes, I have always kept to my schedules."

"Cool, uh - good."

"Oh, you can say 'cool'."

"Good."

"Can I call you Con?"

"Please."

-

The nights are clear so often here. Despite being on a cliff overlooking the sea, the Wayne house doesn't get much mist. He can pick Rao out, and all that blocks his view are the swifts, the bats and more of the bats.

Con has stopped in bat country and realised only a week into his tenure that it's 20 miles back to the nearest public transport place and he can't drive.

Bruce, of course, finds out about Con being Raoian on the second night Con lives with him. He mentions Rao out of fucking nowhere. 

"Were you looking at my -"

"You're wearing His crystal. I - find religious tolerance among the more - important virtues." Bruce looks at him, pleading. Con breathes out - for all Bruce's intensity, he's got this warmth.

"Sorry. Just - my grandparents back in Kansas weren't happy, I kind of expect people here not to be either."

"Everything I see recommends you."

"See, everything you say makes it sound like you're flirting with me and I am not comfortable with you flirting with me if I'm your employee, *Mister* Wayne."

"My sincerest apologies, Con."

Con takes to working in briefs.

-

"You'll not find much rest elsewhere than this suite," Bruce explains early on. "This house isn't very old, but it has memories you won't enjoy."

The portrait of Bruce's parents stares so disapprovingly at Con in the Master bedroom that he opens the window and pulls out the telescope to pray.

In the Regency room, however, it's very warm. The house is unheated but well-insulated most of the time. Con thinks maybe there's something under the room - maybe Bruce has an evil lab somewhere where he turns dark-haired boys into his undead slaves.

The bed is soft, and Con can sort of sense the memories Bruce is talking about. Laughter, mostly. Bruce has this thing about laughter, the right and wrong kind.

He thinks of what he knows of Robin, or Dick Grayson, the oldest one: his laugh was like oncoming Summer, or hoping for Christmas. (Con is conflating Robin with Nightwing, and the story about Him and Flamebird.) Jason had been furtive when he laughed, probably, because Bruce makes his masculinity sound sort of important there. Tim -

Tim must have had trouble laughing too, except when around Dick or Jason. 

Con dozes on Jason's sheets and shifts around on them, imagining laughter. Has Con made Bruce laugh? He's made him smile a lot. No, wait, yes, he has - the inflatable thing.

Something has passed Con's ankle - he opens his eyes, and sees white, irisless, pupilless - brown.

It's a dream. Robin is in front of him, wrapped in black and blue silk. It's definitely a dream because Con was just thinking about Nightwing. 

"Lay back," Robin says, long brown limbs slipping up the bed so he can crawl over Con, never touching, just - right above him. Warm.

"M'on my back," Con says, smiling a lot - for creepy blank eyes, they're nice eyes. And a nice smile...

"So you are, kid." Robin lowers - he really is only dressed in one long blue and black silk ribbon, isn't he? Con slips his legs out and folds them around Robin's waist, crossing his ankles. "Eager."

"Mmmmmhm," Con squeezes - Robin is *tough*, and doesn't even miss a breath. His skin is darkening - he kisses Con.

Someone is holding Con's feet, and uncrossing them. A tongue - longer than Con would expect - laps up them, and he nearly comes then and there - "Not - not yet -"

"Sorry." The tongue goes around his ankles, down - up - his leg, to where it's so wide, it's over both his thighs, and it doesn't go further. Con peeks -

In keeping with the inhumanly large tongue, Robin is flanked by a ruby-skinned, dark-haired boy with a white patch at the top, with blank eyes like his and spattered black and grey patterns across his otherwise nude form. He has teeth - and six little brown wings.

Robin is licking his neck. Con's never had a 'sexy danger' dream before. Clark always told him it would be better if he had. Less sexy danger encounters.

Robin seems to have become Nightwing - coal-black and cobalt skin, little laughs now and then. Of course, the third one joining them is no mystery, even if he's discoloured like the other two, even with the softly serrated wings, even though Con doesn't see him - he just emerges out of the bed underneath him, wrapping his wings around the three of them. As best he's able, anyway. They all have tails, curling around each other, around Con's ankle- 

"Don't - don't I'll come, don't -"

"Aww," Jason says, his tongue fucking finally reaching Con's balls. (Con wraps his thighs around that smug face and squeezes *hard* - very little give. "Got all night, kid. I'll nurse you better."

"We all will," Nightwing says, sitting up finally to turn around - Con stares into his taint like it's hypnotised him, mouth ajar. It's not a dream.

"Please-"

"Okay, kid, hush," and he sits, and Con goes to town. He's not skilled at this. He's just very, very enthusiastic, and Robin tastes of everything right with men. "Hush now. C'mon out, little brother." He must mean Tim, because red-winged boy comes out from under Con - was he shifting like a ghost? Was there a compartment in the bed? 

Tim licks Con's head in a manner similar to Con's rimming Robin - all touch for the sake of touch. Then he feels the condom - the warm slick. The little pokes just to keep him hard. 

Jason, meanwhile, has begun to rim him. Con stops bucking. 

"There you are," Robin says, shifting so Con's resting on his calves and ankles, not the bed. Con's moaning less - "Shhh..." Con stops moaning.

Tim sits down on Con and he is not new to this. He just sighs. Like he's been fed for the first time in a year.

"You like this one, little brother? Like how he fills you up? Like how you fill him up?" Tim hisses softly, and there's a bit of a clench, maybe getting used to Con inside him. "That's right. No more words when you're our good little brother, huh. No, don't fight it... Breathe in... And out. Con, buddy, lick *in* me - good boy. Timmy..."

"Ah... Hh..."

"Timmy, Timmy. Stop struggling..." Con's hips are moved to thrust into Tim, puppeted by Jason and his tongue. "It's me. You can trust Con. That's it, open your eyes - look at me." Tim sinks further down on him, and he hears another desperate sigh. Whatever the spell is, Tim's resistance was only temporary. The tone they use imply this was more a game than Tim actually fighting it. Maybe they do this every time. "It's late, little brother. It's okay to be tired. It's okay to relax. To breathe. Counting down..."

It goes on like this for Con doesn't know how long, but he knows he falls under too, overstimulated to the point he's only really concentrating on Robin's voice talking about relaxation and sex and sleep, the actual relaxation and sex and sleep coming without any conscious effort.

Jason communicates a lot, too, of course. Con nearly snaps out of it when he realises Jason's spelled a sentence into his ass.

-

"Why, if you're a vampire, have you not made other vampires?"

"They are like me, Con, they're just..."

"Those guys are incubi. They got more strength from fucking me than they did any of their blood meals last night."

"They do *take* blood, though."

"I'm gonna see they get more of this, Bruce. I don't care how selfish that sounds, Robin was nearly greying before he did this and now he barely looks 20."

-

"I want you to, uh, get me."

"Uh huh?"

"Like, sn- sneak up on -"

Jason's at his ear. "*Hunt* you, right?"

Tim's under him, dangerously close to - "Force you."

"Yes. Yes, I - I want that."

The two disappear.

-

"You're sure you're okay with this line of work, honey? Wiping old men's fannies in the middle of nowhere?"

"It's a calling, Ma."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Con settles in.

When Jason was brought back, he underwent the changes Dick and Bruce had gone through almost immediately, though of course, they were his own changes, unique to him.

First, the closest he got to another form was slightly pointier canines.

Two months of regular feeding - younger, white collar marks, with adequate health insurance - and Jason no longer needed a disguise when he left the house. Thin, dense red and black down covered him; his natural hair colour, and a lovely deep red around his eyes, like a domino. His palms grew lumpy, spiky, odd.

Wings came to Jason before Dick: long and brown. They split twice, but shrank. He has three little pairs now. The red down came to cover his face.

And a year after his resurrection, Jason's transformation sealed up his mouth. He wasn't black all over with red hair and mask patterns now: he was red from his flat scalp down all over his chest, like he was doused in red acid. New, lamprey-like maws formed on his hands. That took some getting used to for Jason, but of course, the other three were around to comfort him.

Tim finds in the conversion manual's Hellenistic Egyptian translation that this is actually to be expected: convert a living person to the undead and the transformation and accumulation of power from blood is slow. Convert a corpse, the undead form is realised sooner. Convert *ashes*...

Jason is an actual Hell-formed angel now, every time he shifts. That goggle-eyed, mouth-less, nose-less head; six wings Doré would have been proud of; huge red demon bat for a left hand and the huge red demon finch for a right.

He can still pick shit up. He doesn't even use those for feeding, no - tongues loll out of those hand-heads, barbed and thick.

As a rule, they don't kill. Jason typically does. "I'm a fighter, not a lover," he says, the first time Con is feeding him face-to-face for this other need. Con has decided, as Jason is the straightforward sort, that he will just enter his room nude and wait to have things done to him.

Sure enough, the Red Hood - never mind that the hood is made of lightly fuzzy skin, nobody properly sees him in the dark - swings down from the chandelier and lifts Con up, by the throat, with his ankles. Con is spared the talons.

"I think I can help you with that."

"Such - is being this much of a slut religious for you? You're looking at it again."

"It is, yep."

"You fuck in front of your star, and..."

"He just likes to watch."

Those two tongues are coming out and slithering over Con's sides - the blades are retracted, leaving little flexible spikes. Harmless as rubber. Still very wet.

"And you like fucking strange men." He's coiling around Con with his two tongues, he has no other mouths, how is he even talking?

"Stranger the better." 

"I don't appre-"

"I wanted you to do me since I heard about you. I want you in me. I want you. Red Hood. Jason. You."

"Okay, okay."

-

Tim is in front of Con, in stark contradiction to the agreement they'd made hours earlier that Con was to be snuck up upon, surprised, ambushed.

"I know what you're thinking," Tim says, an attempt at being coy. (Tim isn't very coy.)

"I'm wondering what you're going to do to me, li'l bird."

Tim walks up to him - 

And his smile is twice - three times the size it should be, a maw of silvery teeth like some deep sea fish -

"Turn around, Con." Con waits - and smiles, and obeys. Tim wraps silk cord around his wrists. Tim ties another silk cord around his ankles. This is a game? "Struggle for me?"

Con does - and can't. Not too tight, but these aren't just silk. 

"Graphene," Tim says, giddy. He yanks - Con was hog-tied - and carries him over to a sling. 

"That's... Really well done, actually." 

"I majored in communications, but materials science is still fun. That and photography." The irony is lost by the fact Con knows that Tim can photograph vampires now. He's seen the long mutation process in time-lapse for this one. 

The Bat's smallest, most recent Groom, the Red Raven. Black and red feather-patterns all over that body, red hair... Red insides to his serrated wings. He's not that birdlike, but he's not all bat, either.

Con is gagged comfortably.

"So we've established your love of rimming and foot worship, Mr. Kent." The beast takes a seat in front of him, reading from a notebook - there's a Dictaphone on the table. "The latter to the point that if I were to tongue here now -" A knuckle presses on the curve of his sole, and Con moans a little, sweating now. "You'd probably come in about three minutes. I've gone through your folder --"

"Mmh?!"

"Come on, Con, it's a Greek letter and a constellation. Bots could get that. We'll talk about resetting your passwords later." His wings brush along Con's belly... Softer than leather. "Not ticklish at all... I have to admit I didn't have you pegged as a 'piercings' sort."

There's a long silence. He can't see Tim. He can't hear -

"Or a 'double penetration'... Guy."

He's never had more than a tongue inside him. Tim knows that. Tim knows that --

"I have some toys to work you up to that point. First, though," Tim's legs are swiftly around him - and his wings - and his hands are blocking his eyes - "I need your absolute consent to what I'm going to do to you. You'll find out what I'll do to you eventually, once I've done it. Deal?"

His talons lift the gag off. They're shorter, more sickle-like than Dick's. 

"Deal?"

"Good boy, Con."

Over the next six hours, from 10PM to 4AM, the gag is only lifted again once, so that Tim can slip a toy inside. Con is filled in one end, then the other, and bound more thoroughly - not more tightly. 

Then, Tim starts tonguing over his feet

-

"Do you like to fly? More than just seeing Him?" Robin's face isn't as different in his other forms as Tim or Jason's. He is out of proportion, all forearm and calf, and he does get these freakishly long fingers and toes. That blue mask around his face - the axe-shape - is sort of poking out of his face at the tips. In another few centuries, he'll probably look horrifying.

Oh, and his mouth is sort of wraparound now, much bigger than the jaw would allow...

Con rethinks this: Dick's mutated form isn't that different, he's just a siren, and would look supernaturally alluring if he transformed into a literal pile of shit.

"I've gotta," Con replies, giddy. It answers both questions: Con can't separate unaided flight from his religion. 

"Am I blaspheming? If I remember the myth correctly, Nightwing had a very specific partner."

"You're..." That's the other problem. If Clark's friend Jimmy had started dating someone, and decided they were Ruth reincarnated by the Almighty, Con would recommend psychiatric help. The only psychiatrists Con knows of here are Dr. Quinzell and Dr. Crane. Harleen is still recovering from that exorcist's abuse in the arms of an enterprising Alraune on Denholm and 5th. Jonathan is a specialist.

"You don't have to tell me." They're over the cliffs right below the house. "But I'd like not to offend you, if it's possible, Con. Can I play it up? Should I start painting myself green when I turn?" 

Pamela is so enterprising.

"This is how you are naturally," Con says, pressing into his neck. "Do what you want."

-

There are, of course, women in Bruce's life, and in the life of the Bat, but unless you are a morally ambiguous cat-creature, he seems to be completely gay.

Robin, Jason and Tim were his "Grooms" - and as stupid as the word 'groom' sounds outside Gotham, it terrifies all sorts in the city. There were stories, you see - Tim recorded them every night - of the one who'd put you under a spell so you'd draw your own blood for him, of the multi-headed monster with the hooks and the taunts, of the eel-mouthed raven.

Con isn't the only one who noticed Robin's colour scheme - they're calling him Nightwing, some of them. It's like suburban Christians chanting 'Kali-Ma' at a convention. 

Beside the grooms, Nightwing, Red Hood and Red Raven, there were the other Bats, also vampire agents for Bruce. The naming scheme was less defined for them. 

Initially, there was Barbara, or Bat-Girl. Like the rest, she was turned at 30, but she was also four foot eight. She had well-reasoned problems with immortality and cured herself to take over communications and scrying for the group.

The Grooms liked to feign authority, but Barbara was very clearly second in command of the city. She knew what all of them did, when they did it, and she'd normally organised for it to happen. 

Then, there was Cassandra, whom people assumed was the first Bat-Girl returned until she manifested more black and yellow in her other form than grey and purple. Awkwardly, Con had slept with her two years before coming to live with Bruce, and had no idea. Not much of a talker - not verbally, anyway.

Stephanie was the most recently converted. A former schoolmate of Tim's, who had also been converted following cremation, though by Barbara rather than Bruce. She took to vampirism with an enthusiasm that frightened everyone but Jason, who took her under his wing in the ways of eating criminals and happy home-making. 

-

"Aren't you supposed to sleep during the day, Tim?"

"We can't go out for ice cream at night, Con. Be reasonable."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Con is out, and there is an attack.

"Hello, Jason."

Dr. Woodrue's compound is, for all that it's been well-supplied, filthy. Thousands of different mosses coat the benches. There are lianas of at least six different genera choking the industrial-strength light bulbs lining the roof. This sort of technique is probably why he couldn't be a real botanist.

"Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne, it was a SUCCESS, it --"

Another bang from outside. Dr. Woodrue has been assuming - for the better part of a month - that the infrequent explosions had nothing to do with him. Now, he realises, they were directly relevant.

"Yes." Bruce can see her from where he is, of course - he's had that level of sight for decades. On the bench is Dr. Woodrue's former colleague, Dr. Pamela Isley. Below the bench are corpses, mummified and wreathed in tendrils emerging from Dr. Isley's body, which is itself largely wreathed in self-formed lianas. She seems to have taken in most of the local flora already. "I can see that. She's alive again. A shame your great success is being spoiled over a little thing like grave robbery."

"Yes. I - yes. I'll leave now, then, you can have her later, get the control measures -"

"No, actually, I lied about those. There isn't any controlling an Alraune after birth. You were just there to feed her."

"You're no alchemist, Voivode, you... You said -"

Bane's guerillas spend at least thirty minutes picking the lock at the main Gilgamesh wing entrance. The bombs never worked.

"Now that the project has been, as you say, a success, I'm offering the good Doctor a flight home, if she'd like." Pamela's skin is flushing sea-green, the blue leaving her slowly - she's getting up, as Woodrue stares, incredulous.

"You said you'd provide security for me. You - you wanted a vessel for -"

"I lied, Jason. I let you do this because you couldn't assault her with the current toxicity levels and because no-one would miss you. You were always going to die."

Footsteps, boots, down the hall. Silence behind Jason. All of the insects have died.

"In fact, my grooms insisted on it. Pamela?" 

Crick.

"Bruce. Let's go back home."

Bane's men give adequate burials for all but Jason Woodrue, who is prepared on the roof for the vultures.

-

Arkham House was founded on two principles, which it roundly did not stick to:

1\. The detention and punishment of the criminally insane.  
2\. The detention and punishment of whomever could be deemed criminally insane for the sake of keeping them in Arkham House.

Judge Solomon Wayne, a major figure in the city in the mid-19th Century, purchased the House to turn it into more of a hospital. It was cleaned, gentrified, and despite all the problems psychiatry would soon develop it became a fairly reliable research hospital. Much noise was made about the Judge paying for the luxury of deviants out of his own pocket. 

After the Judge's death, it went the way of all such places: torture and untenable treatments reigned before psychiatry emerged as an actual medical field (as opposed to myriad other things behind the label).

Today, Arkham Asylum (and Arkham Island surrounding it) serves as a home for the mentally ill, and other 'deviants', headed by another Wayne. No immurements.

Pamela has adopted much of the local flora to run her gardens here and in the Parks around Gotham, but occasionally ventures out to reacquaint herself with the Columbian ones of her resurrection - or for seeds for Harleen.

Harleen runs the House, at least for the human patients. Jonathan perfects treatments for his specialities, always waiting at the window for the only shape that scares him anymore.

Kirk is defence, a pipistrelle given the Curse three millennia before, now occasionally assuming human form. He is learning to play the piano.

Waylon is defence also: no-one actually knows what he is or where he came from, but his rough Southern manners have dealt with the majority of threats to the House permanently.

-

Bane and company, of course, find out about Gotham's mandrake-creature and are paid a good enough sum to justify an assault on Gotham.

"This is suicide for most of you - she has friends in high places. You've not faced leeches like this before." 

Some of the company have been to Gotham before, and should have known not to return. Bane's enhancements protect him from the weakness that strikes the majority of his personnel within a week of their arrival. (That is, everyone but Bane and Thomas Blake.)

There are six vampires active in the city - they have profiles on one or two, or at least documented abilities. Psychoactives were provided to counter the charm-centric one, but it turns out there was no point. This isn't the first time they've had to do things themselves.

Fire doesn't work. They may have flame-retardant costumes, or, more worryingly, this might just be what the centuries do to vampire hides.

Staking doesn't work. There's always the worry about aim - with the exception of the big one, they're all wickedly agile, and never stay in the same spot long enough to check.

Blessing the city's water supply, and chucking holy water, doesn't work.

Crosses don't work. Not as weapons, not as wards.

Bane's enhancements have proven toxic to them, at least. He begins a bomb scare at the stock exchange to bring the bats to him, while Thomas goes out to track them, knowing full well what   
will happen to him.

-

"Hello, Thomas."

He's upside-down - blue-rimmed eyes glaring white into his. Thomas remembers what Nightwing's charms are like. They've not started yet.

"Nice... To see you too, Richard." Maybe the mask means - maybe direct eye contact is needed?

"You're out on your own... All alone." Nightwing walks along the rafters on those hooked feet, wings dangling down, right up into Thomas, their lips meeting only very briefly, as if accidental. "It's like you missed us."

"Did..." He's had jaguars this close, jaws ready to enter his *brain*, and it's not as unnerving. Thomas can steel himself then, he knows what the jaguar wants. He doesn't know what Richard wants. The thing hasn't fed from him yet. Last time, he ate Thomas' men (which, well, it was suicide squad, fine) and hypnotised him into sharing cocktails on top of the clock tower This clock tower "Did I do something to you in a previous life?"

"Don't play coy with me, kid," the vampire flips, shifts - he's not done this before. A young man, overly scarred, brown-skinned, clothes - scant, but ornate. He's got this stupid silk mask over his face. "I can see your heart from here." 

"I hope you've got a heart," Thomas says, pretending he growls it instead of whimpers. "Someday, I'll drive a stake through it."

"Mm. After," Richard says, and winds around him. They kiss - this is the third time Richard has kissed him, and the second time he kisses back, because the first one happened during a fight and it was all very confusing.

"Okay," Thomas says.

-

The big Bat's wings are broken. His back, too, is shattered. He never seems to stop talking.

Something is in the building with Bane. It isn't the police. They never showed up. It's not hiding, really, it's just fast - green, red and gold; there are clicks on the ground like its soles are steel. It's not big.

Bane drags the Bat - or its carcass at this point, probably - to Robinson Park, where he knows the revenant witch is. He's protected from the main suite of toxins occurring here. Venom has prepared him for the mandrake's oxidative burst, if she uses it.

The stalker shows itself - a tiny demon, horned and tailed and winged and hoofed It is small, no larger than a child (though those horns do add about two feet). It would be more impressive, more horrifying, if it weren't so garishly coloured. It would be like a little boy on Halloween with access to very expensive movie make-up, if it weren't for those freakish legs.

"You will unhand him," little Satan tells him.

"I will," Bane replies, dropping the vampire into a black puddle on the ground, "And I will clean all Hell from the city. You cannot feed from me, goat." Bane is strolling forward and it is clacking quickly. The park rises behind Bane. 

"I can't," the creature says, its eyes bulging to show the oval pupils - it leaps, and kicks, and for no good reason, Bane is thrust back into spiked, choking oak limbs. He is not poisoned, but - "She can." Something is being injected into him. He falls asleep.

Damian takes flight with his little wings, and picks his father up. 

"You're supposed to be better at this. Tim and Jason have Daggett and Thorne back home. You always wanted them, right? Right."

-

Thomas knows who the Bat is. And his Grooms. He knew before coming.

This is the second time they've taken him prisoner, but it's the first he's a guest at their dinner table. It's a big room - fancy.

Strung up above the table - just as Thomas had heard, through Gotham's remaining criminal contacts - are property tycoon John Daggett, energy tycoon Max Schreck and politician Rupert Thorne, who are infrequently drained into goblets for the Bats around the table.

At the other end of the table sits Bruce Wayne, founder of Wayne Enterprises as of sixty years ago and looking about 24. He's looking at Thomas, not unkindly, and he's dressed -- there's a cape, and a lot of muscle. He's well-tanned, for someone who mustn't see the sun often. (Thomas has never faced him head-on.)

Bordering him - none sitting, each boisterously pushing one another away so they can get at the lion's share of Thorne's blood - are the Grooms, but in their human guises. The hair and jewellery tips him off: Nightwing's golden-feathered necklace/chest plate, Red Hood's brown leather straps, Red Raven's gold-barred belts. They all look normal. Really, in the scant outfits with capes and bracelets and anklets and what-not, they look preposterous.

The rest of the seats at the table are the two female Bats - a girl in a black and purple cloak, whispering something to another in black and yellow, who keels over laughing. A boy of about 10 sits, pretending to be bored, sipping Schreck's blood from a coffee mug, and their Seer must be the last one, a red-haired woman in a wheelchair. After their game with Thorne's done, the Grooms crowd about the child and throw him in the air - high enough to kill a boy that age - and he stands in the rafters. They play, then, though the rules beyond 'land a hit' aren't clear, and they smash some glass cases as they do so. Jokes are thrown about favourite dads. Wayne's face is the ideal of patience.

Thomas growls. The blonde girl in the purple cloak replies with a stock meow - the boy, at the opposite end of the room, with a stock screech - Thomas snarls, then tries to scream, and the room erupts in laughter.

-

"Strength had to be expressed to you," Tim tells him over coffee the next morning. "This was based on the profile from your work in Nicaragua. Very stately people you worked for. Lots of documentation."

"I don't buy that you're trying to help me, parasite. You're playing."

"No, actually, though it's interesting that you'd say that." Why does he have this big beard in this form, but not as the Raven? Must be magic. "You're aware at this point of Gotham's supernatural principality under Bruce. We accept supernaturals on the condition they help in our little war, however small the effect is. You're also aware of the injury in the small of your back, and the change in your hair colour over the past six months."

Thomas stares at him. He did not want to talk about this at all.

"Thomas, I'd like you to prepare yourself." Thirty seconds. "You're changing a lot more frequently now. You've eaten the hearts of seventeen human beings, fourteen cows and three chickens. We offer help -"

"You want to cure me."

"Not if we can at all help it, or if you ask," Tim says, his voice softening - sincerely, even. Tim doesn't have Robin's mind-altering voice. This sounds real. "No, we're offering residency in the South-East on behalf of Selina Kyle, who has a condition very similar to yours. She'll be your employer there, you'll have free reign to hunt as she commands there, and you'll have the protection of her clan and ours."

"I came here to *kill* you."

"So did Selina. Bane came around, as well, you'll be happy to know."

"He nearly did your husband *in*-"

"If we took dark, petty vengeance on every party who ever wronged us, who would we count as our friends? Who would ever consider our friendship viable?" Tim is looking at him like a parrot at a stranger, and scratching his head. "The rules of this sort of thing shift a bit. We used to have a very firm no-kill rule, for example. We just outlived the worst ones and kept them too drained to really cause lasting damage."

Thomas blinks a little, then realises for himself: that was murder.

"Yes, you get it. Bruce's initial meals always got sick, too. We've reinterpreted what we do after some rather severe discussion. Are you in, Thomas? Selina and Holly are good people - they're, er... Loyal."

-

Pamela decides not to kill the world when she is given control of a sizeable chunk of its food supply.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rough Trade's 'Birds of a Feather': "Come into my cage - I mean, my room."


End file.
